Slice of Life
by Cerii-chan Kawaii
Summary: This used to be called 'Run Away the Lonliness,' and it was a Kyo drablle, but then I wrote a Shigure one, and rather than have seperate fics as drabbles, I decided to combine them all. Up: Kyo, Shigure, Yuki, Akito, Kagura, Ayame, Haru.
1. Kyo: Run Away the Lonliness

He ran every morning, to try to get rid of the loneliness for a short hour of the day, whether it was raining or not.

When it wasn't raining, he took a bottle of water, jogging with the sweat running down his face. He pushed himself to go on, each breath stinging a bit more, hurting a bit more, until he knew he could go no further.

When it was raining, he took the bottle, but it was empty. It was easier to run in the rain, because on really bad days, you could cry a little bit and no one would notice. Not that he wanted to cry. He hated to cry. He felt weak when he cried, helpless, and he hated that. But sometimes he had to, and the rain helped. And he hated rain, too. But when he was exhausted and had to stop, he sat on a bench, and watched as the empty bottle filled up with rainwater, one drop at a time.

He ran every day, and nobody knew. Nobody knew, because he was back and pretending to be asleep before even Tohru-kun got up. And then he would be back to his usual self, awkward, arrogant and outcast, ruining the breakfast. But he knew he couldn't live without the running. The running made him forget.

For a while.


	2. Shigure: Feeling Like a Father

Shigure didn't really think of himself as the cousin of Kyo and Yuki-kun, or the guardian of Tohru-kun.

He sat at the table every morning, watching as Kyo bickered with everybody, Yuki stumbled in half asleep, and Tohru rushed to please them both. He watched every afternoon from the window, as the three arrived home after school, Kyo and Yuki arguing over timid Tohru's head as she walked in between them and smiled. He listened to them in the living room as he sat on the couch, pretending to write a novel. He observed them, whenever he could, soaking in their personalities, their relationships. He watched them. He loved them.

No, old Shigure-san didn't feel like the cousin of Kyo and Yuki-ken, or the guardian of Tohru-kun. Not at all.

He felt like their father, and that was the way he liked it.


	3. Yuki: Because He Loved Her

She was always on his mind, and he couldn't get her out.

He wished he could, sometimes, late at night, his sleep troubled by her image. But other times, when he was talking to her, half distracted by her beauty, he couldn't help but be happy he had at least her image with him at all times.

He knew he had a fan club, at school. But he also knew they were wasting their efforts. He wanted her, and only her.

Because he loved her. She was the one who took care of him when he was sick, who comforted him when he hated himself. She was the one he loved.

And yet, he hated her. Hated her for making him feel emotion, emotion that he hated, he had trained himself not to have, He had trained himself to stay inside his mind, to be polite and without feeling. He had trained himself to be a rock, so it wouldn't hurt as much when he was damaged. But she had made it different, and he hated her for it.

Or, maybe he loved her for it. He couldn't really tell which.


	4. Akito: Saccharine Power

The others wondered why he was so cruel. But he knew.

He knew, and he wished he didn't. It was terrible, the way he felt when he was being cruel. When he hurt the others, when he hit the others, when he punished the others for things they could not control. When he punished them for love.

He knew, because he felt it, every day, as he lingered in his room. It came to him as he lay in bed, as he lay sick. It filled him, the only reason he kept on living.

He knew. It was power, sweet, sharp power. Power that brought saccharine pain through his veins. Power that controlled him, power that was him.

He knew the power. But he wished he didn't.


	5. Kagura: The Determination Of A Boar

She wanted something she could never have, and that was the way it had always been. How it was now. How it always will be.

She knows he doesn't love her. She knows he's attracted to that onigiri, the outcast just like him. It tore her heart open to see the way he smiled at the onigiri. But she tried as hard as she could to be friends with the girl of his dreams, suffering through each painful moment with the determination of a boar.

The others didn't know how she truly felt. How she put on the violent mask to avoid herself from truly hurting him. She hurt him physically so she wouldn't hurt him mentally. A perfect strategy. With one flaw.

There were so many words she wanted to say, so many thoughts she wanted to think. And she could do none of those, because her love could never be hers.

And she knew it. And she suffered knowing it. But she pressed on, her will not breaking. She was determined to have him, even if she never would.

Maybe, someday, he would notice that.


	6. Ayame: All He Wanted

All he wanted was a little brother.

Just a little brother. That was it. His brother didn't have to love him or take care of him or adore him, just accept him and acknowledge that they were more than just part of the same family. He had made a terrible mistake once, and lost his little brother. But now he wanted him back.

It was terribly selfish of him, he knew. To push something away and then want it back was the same as breaking a promise. He couldn't just let his brother go all those years and then put him back on a leash again. He was used to being free. He didn't want to go back.

And he was okay with that. Everyone deserves some alone time. What really tore his heart apart was the fact that his brother wanted to forget. He wanted to forget he ever had a brother, a big brother. And so, his little brother really was gone.

But he would have him back. Someday.


	7. Haru: Maybe I'll Be Gray

He hated himself.

He hated being two people. One white half, one black half. Both strange, out of the ordinary. Both unsatisfactory. He had lived his childhood in pain and fear, and that had torn him in two. Literally. He hated his black side, and he hated his white side. It was rare for him to find love.

But when he did, it was pure. It was gray.

That's what he liked, about being in love. It wasn't completely bad, or completely good. It was in the middle. Like a yin yang. Equal on both sides, and yet they weren't absolutely separate. They mingled. And that's what Haru wanted to do.

But this curse wouldn't let him.

The others didn't understand, with possibly the exception of Kyo, what was going on inside him. Kyo, being the Cat, might know. They had both been taken advantage of by the Rat. That's why he made sure to fight Kyo whenever possible. If he didn't, he might start to tell him.

His black side almost did, once. But at the last possible moment, a small bit of him, perhaps his gray side, stopped him.

So he kept it inside. Someday, he'd let it out, he'd let the truth out.

But not today.


End file.
